Asian Cabbage Salad

As the weather gets warmer, my mind turns from soups to salad – and on Sunday, at the first BBQ of the season, this salad seemed perfect. In fact, it’s also a great winter salad as most of the ingredients are staples that are available all year round.

What I have outlined below is the core structure of the salad, but you could easily add other ingredients depending on the season and what you have available. I have previously added extras such as finely sliced capsicum, snow peas, red cabbage, radish, bean shoots, cucumber, apple and basil. I’ve also sometimes added noodles to make a more substantial meal. This is similar to a classic Vietnamese salad, but the dressing makes it more of a Asian cultural mish-mash, with soy sauce and sesame oil added to the fish sauce and lime.

I see this as a very flexible template – Let me know what variations you come up with!

Asian Cabbage Salad

½ green cabbage

4 smallish carrots (I used 2 orange and 2 white, but purple would be great for an extra colour)

3 spring onions

½ bunch coriander

large handful mint

Dressing

2 Tbs fish sauce

2 Tbs lime juice

1 Tbs wheat-free soy sauce

1 Tbs sesame oil

1 Tbs brown sugar

1 Tbs rice wine vinegar

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 cm piece ginger finely chopped

Finely shred the cabbage by cutting cabbage in quarters, removing the core, and slicing thinly across each quarter. Peel, and shred or grate the carrots, using a mandolin slicer if you have one. Finely slice the spring onions and roughly chop the coriander and mint.

Combine salad ingredients in a large bowl and toss gently together. These can be prepared early in the day, but don’t dress the salad until you’re about to eat.

Combine all dressing ingredients in a small jar. Adjust seasoning to taste – you may prefer more sugar, lime or fish sauce to adjust the sweet/sour/salty balance.

When about to serve, toss dressing through salad. You may not need all the dressing, but don’t worry, it keeps well in the fridge.

Good idea, I think they’d both be delicious, and go well with that pan-Asian feel. My thoughts always tend towards crunch because of Mr Minecraft’s preferences – that you’re well aware of 🙂 – but he does like mangoes so that might be worth trying now they’re coming into season…

It is great, and easy once you have the dressing ingredients in the pantry. And if you’re hungry now go and make a bowl – you won’t even have to feel guilty!
BTW – thanks for reblogging and sending a few of your thousands my way 🙂